Anna Karenina eBook

others, and hitherto looked on by him with shame as
a harmful weakness. And pity for her, and remorse
for having desired her death, and most of all, the
joy of forgiveness, made him at once conscious, not
simply of the relief of his own sufferings, but of
a spiritual peace he had never experienced before.
He suddenly felt that the very thing that was the
source of his sufferings had become the source of
his spiritual joy; that what had seemed insoluble while
he was judging, blaming, and hating, had become clear
and simple when he forgave and loved.

He forgave his wife and pitied her for her sufferings
and her remorse. He forgave Vronsky, and pitied
him, especially after reports reached him of his despairing
action. He felt more for his son than before.
And he blamed himself now for having taken too little
interest in him. But for the little newborn baby
he felt a quite peculiar sentiment, not of pity, only,
but of tenderness. At first, from a feeling
of compassion alone, he had been interested in the
delicate little creature, who was not his child, and
who was cast on one side during her mother’s
illness, and would certainly have died if he had not
troubled about her, and he did not himself observe
how fond he became of her. He would go into
the nursery several times a day, and sit there for
a long while, so that the nurses, who were at first
afraid of him, got quite used to his presence.
Sometimes for half an hour at a stretch he would
sit silently gazing at the saffron-red, downy, wrinkled
face of the sleeping baby, watching the movements
of the frowning brows, and the fat little hands, with
clenched fingers, that rubbed the little eyes and
nose. At such moments particularly, Alexey Alexandrovitch
had a sense of perfect peace and inward harmony, and
saw nothing extraordinary in his position, nothing
that ought to be changed.

But as time went on, he saw more and more distinctly
that however natural the position now seemed to him,
he would not long be allowed to remain in it.
He felt that besides the blessed spiritual force
controlling his soul, there was another, a brutal
force, as powerful, or more powerful, which controlled
his life, and that this force would not allow him
that humble peace he longed for. He felt that
everyone was looking at him with inquiring wonder,
that he was not understood, and that something was
expected of him. Above all, he felt the instability
and unnaturalness of his relations with his wife.

When the softening effect of the near approach of
death had passed away, Alexey Alexandrovitch began
to notice that Anna was afraid of him, ill at ease
with him, and could not look him straight in the face.
She seemed to be wanting, and not daring, to tell
him something; and as though foreseeing their present
relations could not continue, she seemed to be expecting
something from him.

Towards the end of February it happened that Anna’s
baby daughter, who had been named Anna too, fell ill.
Alexey Alexandrovitch was in the nursery in the morning,
and leaving orders for the doctor to be sent for,
he went to his office. On finishing his work,
he returned home at four. Going into the hall
he saw a handsome groom, in a braided livery and a
bear fur cape, holding a white fur cloak.